How to tell Birds on the Wing.
“I can tell a hawk from a hernshaw.”—Shakespeare.
The small perching-birds and the difficulty of distinguishing them—The wagtails—The finches—The buntings—The redstart-wheatear, Stonechat—The thrushes—The warblers—The tit-mice—The nuthatch, and tree-creeper—The spotted-flycatcher—The red-backed shrike—swallows, martins, and swifts—The night-jar—owls—Woodpeckers.
T
The experienced ornithologist apart, there are hosts of people who are interested, at least, in our native birds: who would fain call them all by name; yet who can distinguish no more than a very few of our commonest species. They are constantly hoping to find some book which will give, in a word, the “Hall-mark” of every bird they may meet in a day’s march. But that book will never be written. For some species present no outstanding features by which they may be certainly identified, when no more than a momentary examination is possible, and this at a distance. And it is often extremely difficult to set down in words, exactly, what are the reasons for deciding that some rapidly retreating form belongs to this, or that, species.
And then, too, there are difficulties due to seasonal changes of plumage—often striking—sex, and age; since immature birds often differ totally from the adults in appearance. The young robin and the starling afford instances in point.